Housing Solutions for Low-Income Urban Communities in Rwanda

Affordable housing is an important policy agenda in Rwanda, where housing challenges are serious. A wide gap between housing supply and demand – approximately 1,000 units supplied by professional developers versus 15,000 new units needed in 2017 – is exacerbated by a huge affordability gap. In Kigali, the lowest price of a developer-built housing unit is around US$20,000. This is far out of the range of the bottom 50 percent of the income group, who can only afford to rent a unit priced below US$12,000. That is, at least half of the residents in Kigali currently cannot access formal housing options.

To serve more than half of the population, Rwanda needs a radical change in its approach to housing that goes beyond the conventional delivery by professional developers. This report defines those currently unserved by the market as low-income households and explores housing solutions for them. Specifically, upgrading of informal settlements and sites and services schemes are globally known and practiced to better accommodate low-income communities and thus this report examines the feasibility of implementing them or scaling them up in the Rwandan context.

Also Read: Assessing Rwanda’s Affordable Housing Sector